Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd turned up for a speech at Oxford University to encourage other women to get into politics.
She expected a packed house of young women with dreams in their hearts, as she had — dreams of making a difference in the corridors of power. She arrived to an empty hall.
Students had cancelled the event because of Ms Rudd’s links to the Windrush scandal, in which Britons of Caribbean heritage were wrongly deported.
Did these arrogant students not know of the code? Or did they just decide it isn’t worth the paper it is written on? Whatever, to no-platform Amber Rudd was the behaviour of the kindergarten, not academia. Amber Rudd is pictured above with student Felicity Graham in the empty lecture hall on Thursday
It’s difficult to know where to begin. Perhaps with the sheer ignorance at Britain’s premier seat of learning.
First, although she resigned over Windrush, a Whitehall inquiry later exonerated her.
She was failed by her civil servants who had given her the wrong information.
Second, the UNWomen Oxford Society, which organised the event, could not have found a more strident ambassador for their cause than Ms Rudd, a former minister for Women and Equalities who has often made herself unpopular within the Tory Party for her socially liberal views.
Oxford University has produced female leaders including Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May
Indeed, so passionately did she feel about helping female students that she had offered to speak free of charge for the event to celebrate International Women’s Day, and proceeds were destined for a Female Genital Mutilation charity.
Third, freedom of speech is essential to learning and debate. Oxford University’s Code of Practice states that, along with ‘academic freedom’, it is a central tenet of university life.
Did these arrogant students not know of the code? Or did they just decide it isn’t worth the paper it is written on?
Whatever, to no-platform Amber Rudd was the behaviour of the kindergarten, not academia.
Oxford University has produced female leaders including Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.
Yet these students who ban anyone from speaking about anything not expressing their juvenile, predetermined view of the world, are introducing Stalinist censorship to its hallowed cloisters.
The dons, the fellows and tutors who stand by as this happens should be ashamed of themselves. Because they are indulging in the greatest evil — doing nothing while bigotry and bullying triumphs.
Those looks may not last forever, but the example Abbey is setting to the next generation will
Abbey ever after
When lingerie model Abbey Clancy married ex-England football striker Peter Crouch, many dismissed her as just another WAG.
Nine years and four babies later, she’s still modelling, has her own fashion line and says she wants to keep working to set an example to her kids.
Those looks may not last forever, but the example Abbey is setting to the next generation will.
Inspired by Greta Thunberg, nearly three-quarters of eight to 16-year-olds are worried about the environment, with some parents even getting professional counselling for their kids’ ‘climate anxiety’.
The snowflake generation is melting faster than the polar ice caps.
Hilary Mantel made her formidable reputation writing about the Royal Family, most notably in her Wolf Hall trilogy on the life of Henry VIII’s advisor Thomas Cromwell, the third part of which is out now.
Whenever she has a book to flog, she makes incendiary comments about the modern monarchy.
In 2013, she derided the Duchess of Cambridge as ‘a shop window mannequin . . . a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung’.
That was when she was promoting her second Wolf Hall book, Bring Up The Bodies.
Now, on the release of the third, The Mirror And The Light, she accuses us British of being ‘abominably racist’ in our treatment of Meghan Markle, who was ‘a smiling face in a dull institution’.
Orf with her opportunistic, self-promoting republican head, I say.
Westminster wars
As many as 100 of Home Secretary Priti Patel’s colleagues write denouncing mostly anonymous claims that she is a serial bully.
A particularly telling barb came from one of her accusers who called her ‘a vile, pushy, horrid thicko’.
It’s the language someone born into privilege uses to describe ‘upstarts’ like Priti, the daughter of Ugandan-Asian shopkeepers, who did not attend prestigious private schools or universities.
It’s not racist or sexist, but an insult based on class — the most pernicious kind of all.
MPs have been awarded a 3.1 per cent pay rise, taking their salary to £82,000.
That does not include their allowances for housing, gold-plated final-salary pensions and expenses.
The armed forces, teachers, prison staff and police officers all got less than that, without the perks. The pains of a decade of austerity seem not to have been visited on our MPs.
The PM explains his absence from the flood disaster zones, saying he was told by emergency services they would have to down tools, distracting them from their job of helping people.
The Queen was given — and intially heeded — that advice after Aberfan, later recalling it was the greatest regret of her life.
Armageddon the booze in!
‘Don’t panic’, cry the anti-hoarder fascists, furious at those of us stocking up. I refuse to be shamed.
Although, I admit, my £527 Tesco home-delivery yesterday included 27 loo rolls, dried pasta and 24 cans of baked beans — I’d have ordered more but they ran out.
And sufficient cat food to feed my moggy Ted through a fortnight’s confinement.
I’ve also now got enough booze to see me and my many friends through a pandemic.
I’m guessing, should it come to that, I’ll be the one that is having the last laugh, hic.
Harry has lost his sense of service
Prince Harry performed one of his final duties as a royal this week, honouring military veterans.
Three times he called the vets ‘you guys’, as though he was still one of them, despite giving up his right to the honorary Forces titles he had hitherto cherished.
‘Being able to serve the Queen and country is something we are all rightly proud of, and it never leaves us. Once served, always serving!’ he said.
Prince Harry performed one of his final duties as a royal this week, honouring military veterans.He is pictured arriving at the event in the rain with Meghan
Odd, then, that he’s actually turned his back on serving.
Living half a world away and pursuing his and Meg’s multi-million-pound dream of fame and fortune, the only one he seems to be serving is himself.
Daniel Craig, who helped Harry’s grandmother open the London Olympics, told PRs not to ‘aggressively market’ No Time To Die as his ‘final Bond’.
Is the actor who said he’d rather slit his wrists than appear as Bond again, leaving the door open to another £18 million movie fee?
On International Women’s Day tomorrow, a quick thank you to the most important women in my life.
My grandmother ‘Battleaxe’ Blanche, who taught me to stand up to any man, and gave me lessons in seeing off any potential rapist by gouging out their eyes.
My two Aussie school mates Amanda and Joy, who taught me the treasures of enduring friendship.
We will celebrate our 50-year fellowship in London this year. And my Mum, who taught me everything that was ever worth remembering.
Kristin Scott Thomas says she’s fed up with people saying she ‘looks good for her age’
Do change the tune, Kristin
Ahead of starring in feelgood movie Military Wives, about Forces spouses who found sisterly solidarity singing in a choir, the sublimely beautiful Kristin Scott Thomas says she’s fed up with people saying she ‘looks good for her age’.
Oh, do get over yourself, Kristin. You’re 59. You have three healthy children.
And your pleading when you have so much to be thankful for makes a mockery of those women who every day lived in fear of losing everything.